Berlin takes reports about U.S. spying attacks seriously: spokesman

The German government is taking the latest reports on U.S. spying attacks on senior government officials seriously and authorities are analyzing their contents, a government spokesman said on Thursday. Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff told the U.S. ambassador in Berlin during a meeting that German law had to be respected and violations must be punished, Steffen Seibert said in a statement. In the latest twist in an ongoing scandal over U.S. spying in Germany, media reported that the Nat